Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner is a challenge to deeply held beliefs regarding the autonomous nature of humans. Skinner, being one of the founding fathers of the behavioral movement reduces most human activity to a function of social living. Behaviorism has a distinct advantage over other psychological schools insofar as it’s hypotheses can be tested using the scientific method, and observation of objective behavior over subjective thoughts. While primary using rats as his experimental models, Skinner extrapolated his findings to human behavior to create a theory that promoted social conditioning on mass scale in order to create social control.
Beyond Freedom and Dignity is divided into nine chapters. Initially, Skinner sets out his theories of technological advances. He quotes Darlington approvingly in saying that with each new technological advance, we simultaneously increase our power but damage the well being of future generations. He then proceeds to argue that basically mankind is too shortsighted to rectify this problem and that the sciences must be harnessed in order to get mankind to modify its short-term behaviors in favor of longer-term goods. Arguing that our understanding of human behavior has fallen to the wayside as we have come to understand biology, physics, and other hard sciences, he promotes the study of behavior as a means of overcoming our weaknesses and as a response to mentalism. Skinner elucidates the concepts of operant behavior and the idea that responses are conditioned and behavior is molded by what happens in the environment both before AND after an action. The problem with this theory of Skinner’s is that it is simply not true. The idea that technologies leave the world a damaged place is a primitivist viewpoint that ignores the many goods that have come out of technology. How does solar energy development leave the world worse off? Furthermore, modern farming may contribute to greenhouse gasses, but on the other hand it provides ample food for a growing population. Where once a substantial number of people died from hunger, even in the western world, today it is becoming unheard of in the developed world, and is certainly not as severe as it was in the developing world. Skinner weighs the problems caused by the machinery negatively, when there is a substantial positive. Perhaps the world will be worse off, but now people may actually live to see that worse world. Finally, it is hard to see the damage caused by modern bio-medical advances. What are the harms caused by vaccinations? What are the harms caused by disease cures? Is it the cost of these drugs that is considered the damage? Is it the social inequality of those that are able to afford the drugs? In sum, it’s a nonsensical argument put forth both by Skinner and Darlington.
In one chapter titled “Freedom,” Skinner makes the case that most actions are performed in order to get a degree of freedom. Even simple reflexes are seen in the light of achieving freedom: a sneeze is freeing the respiratory passages, vomiting is liberating the stomach of toxins and poisons, even withdrawing from sharp or hot objects is viewed through this prism of liberation. In this chapter there is also a succinct explanation of operant conditioning and both negative and positive reinforcement, as well as various mechanisms of learning theory. Once again, these are looked at from the perspective of ‘escape.’ Ultimately though, the thesis is that freedom defined as a state of mind is incorrect, and that achievement of freedom is actually a reduction in negative stimuli. This theory too is utter nonsense. Basically, Skinner can describe everything as ‘freedom.’ The desire to eat is freedom from hunger. The desire to love is freedom from loneliness. The desire to be alone is freedom from love. This is circular and self-serving. Human actions may actually occur for much loftier reasons than individual freedom. Indeed, we have to accept death as freedom in order to appreciate certain altruistic motivations of men, and this too is overly simplified. He further neglects the fact that many people when given the choice of freedom would rather have autocracy and their lives dictated to them. We need not look only at Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia as examples of a perfectly docile population in the face of anti-freedom. More contemporary examples can be found in the Arab spring. Egyptians when presented with the opportunity to ‘live free’ chose authoritarian government that dictated every detail of what an individual could do. The notion that behavior is performed to achieve freedom is therefore simply false.
Aside from “Freedom” other chapters review the notion of dignity, punishment, alternatives to punishment, values, cultural evolution, cultural design, and finally attempts to answer the question: what is man? The basic idea is that everything that we are familiar with is largely incorrect. Dignity is a process of giving people credit for actions, but if actions are largely predetermined than the idea of dignity is errant. The same is said of punishment: since our choices aren’t governed by free will, punishment is ineffective at controlling human behaviors. Alternatives to punishment are just as misdirected as punishment with regards to controlling human behavior and he encourages scientific inquiry into better methods. Once again, day-to-day reality shows that this contention is false. Punishment is shockingly effective at controlling behavior. Furthermore, dignity is not so much a process of giving credit for actions, but rather an internal response to the actions of others. Predetermination is a bit of an infantile attitude to take altogether, and it simply gives an excuse for tyrants and misanthropes to not take the blame for their disastrous actions. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, were not responsible for their actions! Their actions were predetermined and therefore they can’t be punished because anyway it will be ineffective. It’s a stupid and very dangerous contention that Skinner makes in this regard.
Critics of Skinner and Behaviorism run the philosophical gambit from Noam Chomsky to Ayn Rand. Skinner maintains many ideas that are difficult to integrate into the obvious human existence. Namely, individuals often do things for no apparent reason that is of no obvious benefit. Altruistic tendencies do not show a desire to escape. Punishment has been shown to change behaviors in recalcitrant children. Morality is not necessarily social – indeed, many times individuals have taken a moral stand that is contrary to the prevailing social norms. Skinner’s brilliance comes from his desire to subject his theories to the rigors of science. Some of his concepts have proven to be wrong or ill fitted and they must be discarded. Still others have proven sound and useful for psychologists and teachers alike.
Sources:
Skinner, B.F. (2002). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing
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